The second installment of my blogs geared toward the hypertrophy-challenged (read part 1 on how to grow your legs here) focuses on the beloved pectorals. Or chest, if you’re anatomically-challenged. Even though almost everyone prioritizes their chest by training it first in the week (Monday is international bench press day every week, after all), few people are able to carve pecs of steel as intended.
If your chest won’t grow no matter how hard you train, you could be making one of these 5 mistakes:
1. You Only Bench Press
If the only direct chest exercise you do on a regular basis is the barbell bench press with a powerlifting-style arch, you’re missing out on some serious hypertrophy potential. Don’t get me wrong – the bench press is my jam. It’s my favorite upper body movement for maximal strength, but there are a couple factors that make it far from the best choice for muscle growth.
First of all, if you’re benching with optimal powerlifting form, you’re drastically reducing the range of motion via a big arch and a relatively-wide grip. You’re using plenty of leg drive to increase bar speed and reduce the muscular demand on the pecs at the bottom of the movement. And you’re performing lots of heavy, low-rep sets that are neurologically-driven more so than hypertrophy focused.
Also, by locking your hands into position on the bar, you’re limiting the amount of horizontal adduction (think a “hugging” motion) your arms can go through, which is a huge function of the pecs.
For overall pec development, it’s a good idea to use a combination of:
- Heavy barbell bench press (1-5 reps/set)
- Dumbbell bench press at varying angles (8-12 reps/set)
- Flyes with dumbbells and cables at varying angles (10-20 reps/set)
- Push-ups of all kinds (lots and lots of reps)
2. You’re Not Moving Your Shoulder Blades
Piggybacking on the previous point, if your scaps (shoulder blades) never move, you’re limiting your pec growth right off the bat. The muscles that comprise the chest (pectoralis major, pectoralis minor and serratus anterior) are responsible for the following movements:
- Shoulder internal rotation (what happens at your shoulder when you make a “thumbs down” motion)
- Shoulder adduction (the aforementioned hugging)
- Shoulder extension (the concentric part of a pullover)
- Scapular protraction (a punching or reaching motion)
That last one is really important. When benching heavy, it’s important to keep the scaps locked in place via a “down and back” position. But if you ALWAYS do that during every chest exercise, you’re omitting a huge function of the chest muscle group. If you’re doing push-ups or flyes, you gotta let the scaps move.
So if you’re doing flyes, finish each rep like you’re giving a bear hug to a long-lost friend. And if you’re doing push-ups, finish each rep like you want to make your upper back look like a turtle shell.
3. You’re Not Doing Enough Push-Ups
The basics work. It doesn’t get much more basic than push-ups, and if your chest won’t grow, one of the simplest things you can do is a shitload of push-ups.
As we just discussed, push-ups check a lot of boxes when it comes to pec development, especially the often-neglected scapular protraction. And the ability to change hand placement quickly and easily lets you self-select what targets your pecs most effectively.
There’s an inverse relationship between intensity and volume: the closer a load is to your 1-rep max, the fewer sets and reps you can do, and vice versa. For most of us who have been training for a long time, push-ups are very far away from a 1RM. So for push-ups to be an effective exercise for advanced lifters, the volume has to be very, very high.
The Juarez Valley push-up finisher is one of my favorite ways to torch the chest at the end of a workout. It splits up 110 push-ups over 10 sets – not for the faint of heart (or chest?).
4. Your Triceps Fail First
If the goal is muscle growth, you have to consider what muscle fails first on any exercise you perform. If the answer is anything but the target muscle group, it’s the wrong exercise for the job.
For many people, the bench press causes the triceps to fail first, leaving the chest too far from failure to elicit a hypertrophy adaptation. If your chest won’t grow, it may be a good idea to pre-fatigue the pecs before performing your heavy barbell pressing movements so your triceps don’t crap out first.
This classic bodybuilding strategy often involves performing chest flyes with dumbbells, cables or a pec dec machine for several sets of higher reps close to failure at the beginning of the workout. After that, you can move to heavier, lower-rep barbell bench press. Because your pecs are pre-fatigued, they’re more likely to approach failure first instead of the triceps, making the bench press a more effective pec movement in the moment.
5. You Don’t Train Your Chest Often Enough
Just like we discussed in part 1 of this series, how often you train a muscle group will make a huge impact on how much it grows. Bigger muscles (pecs included) can be trained less frequently, smaller muscles more frequently.
But once a week is probably not often enough for ANY muscle group. And WAY too many gym bros smash their chest on Monday and only Monday. If your chest won’t grow, try upping your frequency to 2-3 times a week.
Here’s a simple setup I’ve used for years for people who train upper body twice a week:
Day 1
Heavy bench press (1-5 reps/set)
Bench press variation (lighter weight, 1-2 rest-pause sets)
Flyes (10-15 reps/set)
Pull-Ups / Pull-Downs
Biceps
Push-Ups
Day 2
Bench press – slightly lighter than day 1 (3-6 reps/set)
Dumbbell bench press variation (8-12 reps/set)
Rows
Rear delts
Triceps
This is a solid starting point for most seasoned lifters when it comes to direct chest training. If you do this for a while and find your chest won’t grow anymore with this approach, you could add an additional upper body day to keep the gains coming.
Big Pecs, Cash Checks
To summarize, if your chest won’t grow, try the following:
- Mix up the type of chest exercises you do (i.e., more than just barbell bench)
- Allow your scaps to move on flyes and push-ups
- Do a high-rep push-up finisher at the end of one of your upper body workouts each week
- Pre-fatigue your pecs so your triceps don’t fail first
- Train your pecs AT LEAST twice a week
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